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Regional Human Trafficking and Smuggling Sub-Sector: RMRP 2021 End-Year Report

Pays
Colombie
+ 16
Sources
R4V
Date de publication
Origine
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SITUATION

Human trafficking and migrant smuggling are complex phenomena, linked to transnational criminal networks, which can generate a series of human rights violations for refugees and migrants who experience them. Trafficking and smuggling disproportionately affect women, girls and adolescents.

The prolonged impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated Venezuelan refugees’ and migrants’ vulnerability to trafficking and smuggling. Mobility restrictions and border controls have propelled the use of alternative and more dangerous travel routes, irregular border crossings and unofficial means of transportation, which also increased refugees’ and migrants’ dependency on smuggling and trafficking networks and their risks of exploitation. Border controls and movement restrictions also resulted in greater numbers of Venezuelans in an irregular situation, which limited their ability to access documentation and regularization procedures, work legally, or exercise their rights. Limited income-generating prospects and access to social services also increased possibilities of abuse and exploitation